


Empty Socket (The Heart Like a Turtle Remix)

by htbthomas



Category: New Girl
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, F/M, Gen, Marriage of Convenience, POV Nick, Remix, Season/Series 01
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-10
Updated: 2014-05-10
Packaged: 2018-01-24 06:48:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,979
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1595522
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/htbthomas/pseuds/htbthomas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"No way," he said. "No. This is nuts! Are you all crazy?!"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Empty Socket (The Heart Like a Turtle Remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Kyra](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kyra/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Heart Like a Socket](https://archiveofourown.org/works/943649) by [Kyra](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kyra/pseuds/Kyra). 



> AU following Episode 1.15 "Injured."
> 
> Thanks to blithers for the quick-but-thorough beta.

Nick grips the bathroom sink with both hands, the porcelain under his fingers feeling more real than most of the last few days, realer than that—that conversation out there. What the hell are they all thinking? Get married? To Jess?

She’s his roommate, his friend, sure, she’s nice, she’s pretty, he’d be lying if he said he hadn’t thought about hooking up with her once or twice. Okay, he thinks about it _all the time_. And if they got—

No. He looks up into his eyes in the mirror. Bloodshot. Tired. Sick. Is he really that sick, so sick that he needs to marry Jess for the insurance? No, he can’t do that, they can’t do that, that’s crazy talk.

“Nick!” Nick hears Schmidt well before he bursts through the bathroom door. “Nicholas Miller, why are you walking away from this!”

He turns away from Schmidt. He can’t deal with Schmidt’s intensity, not on top of the feelings that are so intense he feels like he’s going to implode.

“You look at me, Nick! Don’t shut yourself off like you always do. This is a brilliant plan. This is going to work and you’re going to be back to full health in no time!” 

He places a hand on Nick’s shoulder and something just snaps. Nick throws himself away from Schmidt, as far as he can get, clear on the other side of the bathroom. “No! It is _not_ brilliant! It’s damn crazy!”

Schmidt doesn’t give Nick the space he needs, Schmidt comes right into Nick’s face, nostrils flaring. “What’s so crazy about wanting you to get better, Nicholas? You’ve been my friend for nearly a decade, and that’s not enough. I want ten more, nay, one hundred more!”

“Get out of my face, Schmidt!” he growls, flailing with his arms to get some space. “We’re not doing it, and that’s final.”

“Okay, okay,” Schmidt backs up, palms up in a sign of surrender. “Fine, I get it. You don’t want to get married. I get it. You’re a wild stallion, still roaming free on these wild plains of _Los Angeles_.” His ridiculous faux-Spanish pronunciation of the city jars with his overly soothing voice. “But how long can you roam, my handsome Arabian,” he places a gentle hand on Nick’s shoulder, “if you go lame?”

“Lame?” Nick shrugs him off, annoyed that he was starting to be lulled by the tone of Schmidt’s voice. “Don’t talk to me with your stupid… horse metaphors. That—!” He points toward the door, in the general direction of where Jess is probably still sitting, shell-shocked over this crazy suggestion. “—is our roommate, our friend, out there! What does she think of this insane idea? She hasn’t said a word, has she?!”

And that’s really it—Nick doesn’t know what he wants. Marriage is a big deal, a _huge_ deal, it’s goddamn terrifying. And if Jess doesn’t want this, if she’s being pressured into marrying him just to “save” him, then Nick definitely doesn’t want it, he doesn’t want it at all, and certainly not if there’s a chance that “until death do us part” is going to be soon. But he can’t say that, can’t tell Schmidt, who thinks he’s so damn smart, and totally forgets that there are real people involved in this thing.

“She certainly didn’t throw a hissy fit and storm out of the room!”

“I STORMED OUT LIKE A MAJESTIC STALLION!” Nick pushes past Schmidt into the hallway. He needs to escape, but he can’t go too far, not with Jess right there trying to process. Or he thinks she is. Is she? He glances over his shoulder, sees Cece sitting beside Jess on the couch, holding her hand and talking softly. Jess catches his eye for just a moment, and it’s like a spear of fear and pain and hope all at once.

He breaks her gaze and nearly dives into his bedroom, slamming the door and falling onto his bed, face first. He needs time to think, to process, and he’s tired. So tired.

So of course there’s a quiet knock. “Nick?” It’s Winston, wheedling, “Can I come in?”

Geez, he’s not a five year old. “No!” he whines. “Go away!”

“I just want to talk. No yelling, I promise.”

Nick groans, grabbing his pillow and pulling it over his head. Winston’s going to come in anyway, no matter what he says. And just like that, the door quietly clicks open.

“Heyyyyy, Nick.” There’s a pause, the bed dips down as Winston sits. “Nick?”

Nick pulls the pillow over his head tighter. He can’t keep Winston from coming in, but he doesn’t have to listen.

“You doing okay, buddy?”

Even with the pillow over his ears he can still hear Winston using that speaking-to-toddlers-or-the-mentally-unbalanced voice, so Nick uncovers his head to glare at him. Winston has his hand out, hovering over Nick like he’s going to pet him like a cat, but Nick’s look makes him retract it.

Winston clears his throat and starts again. “We’re trying to help you.”

Nick just looks at Winston for a second, at the worry in his eyes, and he can’t stand it. He turns over in bed, where he doesn’t have to see that pity. “I don’t need that kind of help.”

“Okay. I get it.” He scoots on the bed—closer, farther, Nick can’t tell. “What do you want to do?”

“I don’t know.” And he doesn’t know when he’ll know either. Probably waste away, die in this bed before he ever knows. He just can’t take advantage of Jess this way, sweet, kind Jess, who would probably absorb his maybe-cancer herself, like that dude on that one film he once saw with that famous actor. Except, “She can’t turn it into black sludge.”

“Um,” Winston says, and Nick doesn’t care, he’s too tired to explain his thought processes right now. “Okay. What you need is some peace and quiet and time to rest.”

“All I want,” Nick mumbles into the pillow.

“I’ll be back later.” Nick feels the mattress lift as Winston rises from the bed. “When you’re ready.”

Nick hears the door open and close just as quietly as before. He closes his eyes, hoping for oblivion to overtake him.

“Well? What happened in there?” Schmidt’s voice pierces through the door as if he’s standing right over Nick.

Winston’s voice is quieter, but Nick can still hear him just fine. “We were just having a calm, reasonable conversation. He just needs—”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean—’a calm, reasonable conversation’?! Can I help it if I care what happens to that young man in there? I guess I just care too much!” 

“Oh, yeah? Well, I care, too, Schmidt, and I know that if you push him, he’s just going to do the opposite of what you want! He’s been like that since we were kids!”

“Don’t you play that ‘we’ve been friends forever’ card like you know Nick better than anyone else. Who’s been by his side for the past nine years, one week and one day, huh? _You_ left him, went off to pursue your hoop dreams and—”

“—well, I’m back now aren’t I, so—!”

“—do you think that makes up for—?”

Nick throws the pillow, so hard that it flies across the room and crashes into the wall. Blood starting to boil, he stands and stalks across the room toward the door.

“SHUT UP!”

Jess’s voice freezes Nick in place, hand on the doorknob. The two doofuses outside the door stop arguing, too.

“We _all_ care about Nick, okay? Do you think arguing, right there in front of his door, is going to help anything? Leave him alone—this is his decision. We’re going to do what Nick wants to do, and that’s that.”

“But he—”

“Even if—”

She cuts them off again like the pro she is. “That’s that.”

Nick waits until the two leave, muttering complaints, before he releases the doorknob. He backs up toward his bed, Jess’s words ringing in his head. ‘We all care about Nick,’ she said. No argument with Schmidt’s crazy plan, no attempt to find another solution.

He stares up at the ceiling for a long time. The front door opens and closes a couple of times, but Nick barely notices. It’s such a long time that the next thing he knows it’s a couple hours later and he doesn’t feel any better or any closer to knowing what to do. 

It’s quiet in the loft now. Is everyone gone? Did they leave him alone, literally? He sits up, his heart gripped with a weird sort of panic. He listens hard—nothing. He gets out of bed as quietly as he can, though he doesn’t know why, and opens his bedroom door. Just a crack. 

Lights are on, so maybe there’s someone still around. He peeks around the corner into the living room...

Jess is curled up on one end of the couch, asleep. He watches her for a minute, leaning against the corner. She looks just as exhausted as he feels, her black hair falling across her face in messy tendrils. He wants to go to her, but he hesitates. He needs to talk to her, to tell her that it’s her decision, to get married or not. But what if she wants this? Or what if she doesn’t...

Padding over to the refrigerator, he reaches in to grab a beer. He opens the beer, wincing against the carbonation escaping from the top of the bottle. But Jess only shifts a little, making those little noises she often makes when she sleeps, the ones he tries and fails not to find adorable. So he moves to the couch, sitting down on the opposite end. She murmurs in her sleep, pulling herself into a tighter ball. 

He hesitates again. Should he wake her? Tap her on the shoulder or clear his throat? He heaves a sigh. She’ll wake up when she wakes up. He picks up the remote control and turns on ESPN at a low volume. It’s some basketball game, not one of his teams, but he doesn’t really care, he’s not going to be able to concentrate on it anyway.

It doesn’t take long. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Jess’s breathing get more shallow, and she quiets, too still for real sleep. “I know you’re watching me,” he says without looking at her, hoping he’s right.

Jess takes a deep breath and sits up. “You know we care about you, right?”

“Yeah.” His voice sounds tired even to his own ears.

“It’s a good plan—it’ll work.” 

“Will it?”

“It will.” She scoots closer, and takes his hand. “It has to.” 

“But Jess,” he says, putting the volume on mute and turning toward her, “I don’t get it. What do you get out of this?”

“Get out of it?” she huffs with dismay. “I get to keep my friend. I mean, I like you.” She laces her fingers with his and squeezes. “I really want you to stick around.”

He doesn’t squeeze back, looking into her face to make sure she really, really means it, that’s he’s not just some burden she’ll have to shoulder because she’s too kind-hearted to say no.

Then the corners of her eyes crinkle up and she teases, “Plus, you can pay me back in Nick Bucks.”

Suddenly all of his worry melts away, taking the excuses with it. He smiles with relief and squeezes back. “Okay, fine. We’ll do this.”

“Good.” She leans over and kisses him on the cheek. “Now go back to bed, mister, you know you need at least a three-hour nap before your shift tonight.”

“Yes, ma’am.” The place where she kissed him tingles. He’ll go back to bed, but he doubts he’ll get much sleep.


End file.
